Benjamin Franklin: Renaissance Man of the Colonial Era

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin was an important person who played a major role in the history of STEM. He possessed many qualities which helped him in becoming a successful scientist, inventor, writer, a diplomat, and a Founding Father. Nowadays he is most commonly known as the scientist who "discovered electricity".

Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in Massachusetts Bay Colony, today known as Boston. He was the son of Josiah Franklin and Abiah Folger. Benjamin Franklin was Josiah's fifteenth child, out of 17 children that his father had. Ben learned to read at a very young age. He went to school at Boston Latin School until he was the age of 10 when his dad made him work full-time at his cash strapped father's candle and soap shop. Unfortunately, he didn’t

enjoy it.
Later, his father apprenticed him at 12 to his brother James in his print shop where he learned a lot about newspaper publishing and took advantage of a law for printers. At age 16, he adopted the pseudonym Mrs. Silence Dogwood, along with 14 of her letters. Tired of his brother's behavior, he fled to New York in 1723, despite the fact that he was still legally his master's apprentice for three more years. Then he settled in Philadelphia, where it would end up being his home base. There he met another printer, then he moved to London, where he explored the city, wrote his first pamphlet, "A Dissertation upon Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and pain" and he swam across the Thames River for long distances due to his invention: the wooden flippers.
At the age of eleven, he invented a pair of fins to wear on his hands while he swam. Benjamin enjoyed them, for it helped him swim faster and easier. In 1968, his advocacy for swimming was recognized by his induction into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1968.
Franklin returned, in1726, to Philadelphia, where he worked in various jobs such as a bookkeeper, shopkeeper, currency cutter, printer, and a partner to a friend who opened his own shop that published government pamphlets and books. Later he formed the Junto, which would lead him to help incorporate America's first subscription library, the library Company of Philadelphia, in 1731. He made more pamphlets and promoted The Pennsylvania Gazette to the high popularity under his purchase.
He altered, re-met with his loved one, Deborah Read, and took her in as his common-law wife in 1730.

Later they adopted a kid named William and had a baby, Francis, who was born in 1732, but eventually died at the age of four of smallpox. The couple's only daughter, Sarah, was born in 1743.

Franklin's success grew during the 1730s, for it used new forecasts, astronomical information, poetry, and many different types of writings. Around the 1740s, Franklin's interests in innovations and scientific pursuits grew. He even wrote a pamphlet "A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge" which served as the founding document of the American Philosophical Society, the first scientific group of people in the colonies. This drew him into entrepreneurship with the invention of the Franklin stove.

Franklin invented the Franklin stove, in 1742, which is a metal-lined fireplace that stands in the middle of a room. This would provide more heat and less smoke, unlike a fireplace, and it used less wood. It had rear baffles for improved airflow, helping the heat radiation from the middle of the room to all directions and it had metal walls which would help it absorb heat and use it longer after the fire went

out.
By 1748, Benjamin had become one of the richest men in Pennsylvania. Due to his increase in desire to conduct scientific experiments, he turned in his printing business to his partner. He bought slaves, but over the years he started to change his perspective and eventually hated the idea of slavery so he freed his in the 1760s.
He signed up in the militia at the age of 42, but his interest in electricity was ignited at this time. His electrical phenomena were compiled into "Experiments and Observations on Electricity," published in 1751. This led to the famous kite-and-key experiment and the invention of the lighting rod; also, it led to new electricity related terms such as battery, conductor, etc.
The famous kite-and-key experiment started all because Benjamin Franklin set out to prove his theory that lightning was an electrical phenomenon and that the electrical effect of lightning could be transferred to another object. This curiosity led him to fly a kite on a stormy night with his son William. This kite was attached to a string of silk, which had an iron key at the end. There was a thin metal wire attached from the key into a Layden jar, which was a container that could store electrical charges in. On the key was a ribbon so Benjamin Franklin could hold it to fly the kite. When he was flying the kite, under a barn so he wouldn’t get wet, the negative charges from the cloud would be passed down to his kite, down to the key, and into the jar. Because Benjamin was holding onto the silk, he was unaffected by the negative charges. When he moved his free hand close to the key, he received a shock. This was caused by the kite's negative charges and the positive charges from his body to strongly attract to one another. This experiment successfully proved that lightning was static electricity. Franklin was actually lucky to survive because for after this incident many other scientists would attempt this experiment resulting in being electrocuted.
Realizing that this type of electricity could be transferred to the ground, he invented the lightning rod. This was simply a rod attached to the top of the building, connected to the ground through a wire. This would conduct electricity from the lightning a transfer harmlessly to the ground. This protected many houses and reduced the amount of people being electrocuted.
Since he "invented electricity" he had to create new electricity-related words. Some of these words included battery, conductor, charge, discharge, negative, minus, plus, electric shock, and electrician. These terms are widely known and they are still used today.
Furthermore, Benjamin Franklin developed bifocals that could be used for either reading up close or seeing distant objects. The top half of the bifocals were used to see far away objects while the bottom half was used to see up close. Benjamin used these because he suffered from presbyopia, which is farsightedness caused by loss of elasticity of the lens of the eye.
He is credited with having invented the first rocking chair, flexible catheter, and the American penny.
As he was starting to get interested in music, he developed the harmonica, a musical instrument composed of spinning glass bowls on a shaft. This instrument was used by Beethoven and Mozart.
Because he was well self-educated, he earned honorary degrees from colleges like Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and Scotland University. He eventually wrote a pamphlet about Pennsylvania's great education, resulting in the construction of the Academy of Philadelphia, now known as the University of Pennsylvania.
Later, Benjamin Franklin invented the long arm. Because Benjamin loved to read books, he had tall shelves filled with them. It was very hard for him to reach books that were located in high places. As a result, Benjamin used his brilliant mind to invent the long arm, which is basically a wooden pole with a grasping claw at the end. It was simple yet effective.
Furthermore, Benjamin Franklin drew the Gulf Stream, which required an enormous amount of math and science. He always wondered, when he would voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, why would the trip eastwards was faster than return trips. His curiosity led him to be the first to map the Gulf Stream. He found out that the Gulf Stream is an ocean current that starts from the Gulf of Mexico, goes out through the Strait of Florida and continues by the eastern coastlines of the United States and Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
Besides being an inventor, Benjamin Franklin became a diplomat, a leader, a scientist, a philosopher, an ambassador, a writer, a representative, a businessman, and especially a role model.
Unfortunately, Benjamin Franklin died on April 17, 1790 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the home of his daughter. He suffered from gout, causing him to die at the age of 84. He was later buried in the same grave as her wife and he bequeathed most of his estate to his daughter. He also gave a lot of his money to universities around the world.
In conclusion, Benjamin's intelligence led to inventions that benefited the world and impacted the history of STEM in a positive way. Although he possessed many qualities, he is best known for being a scientist and an inventor.